Dubai trains students: How to handle fire

Dubai Civil Defence started training government school students on how to act if they got stuck in a place which was on fire. (Sneha May Francis)

By

Mahra S.

PublishedSaturday, April 30, 2016

What would your child do if your child’s clothes caught fire? Or if he was trapped in a room on fire? Will he be able to save himself?

Keeping this in mind, Dubai Civil Defence will start training private school students on what to do in case of an emergency.

In a special programme launched in 2011, Dubai Civil Defence started training government school students in Dubai on how to act if they got stuck in a place which was on fire.

Speaking to Emirates 24|7, Abdulla Hamza, a lecturer at Dubai Civil Defence said that they started this programme with the aim of raising awareness among school students on how to act and save their and others lives.

“In this programme, we train two students in each class and make them part of Civil Defence Friends Club. The members of this club are trained on regular basis throughout the academic year on how to use different types of fire extinguishers, what to do if their clothes caught fire, what to do if there was smoke in the room, how to evacuate the class room in an orderly manner and prevent their classmates from pushing or panicking, among many other things.”

He pointed out that in each class, these two students will play a major role in managing emergencies such as a fire or smoke resulting from fire.

“Among these two students, one of them will be responsible to show classmates on how to leave the classroom without pushing and guide them to the nearest exit. While the other one will check around if there was any student who was hiding under the tables or chairs and fearing to leave the classroom.”

The programme was so popular that many private schools started asking to get the same training in their schools, and this is going to start by the beginning of the next academic year in September.

“Due to high demand and requests in the past few years, we decided to launch this programme in stages in all private schools in the emirate based on their requests. This is a useful training which will help the students not only in schools, but also at their homes.”

Emirates 24|7 also spoke to a group of students who are members of Dubai Civil Defence Club, and they said that they benefited a lot from the training.

Ali Mohammed, a student from Ahmed Bin Rashid School in Dubai said that he learnt how to hold and use different types of fire extinguishers. “We learnt how to save the situation,” he said.

He added that also learned that if his clothes caught fire, the first thing he must do is to cover his face with both his hands and then lay down on his back and roll on both sides to put off the fire.

Khalifa Rashid, another student, said that one important point they learnt was not to go back to a fire location if they forgot their mobile phones or iPads or any other valuable item. “We learnt that we have to wait for the Civil Defence to put off the fire and give us permission to return to that room or place to search for the items we left behind.”